The SA Revenue Service has warned taxpayers about two of the latest scams targeting them. One arrives as an SMS text message and the other via e-mail, summoning the reader to court.
THE SA Revenue Service (Sars) has warned taxpayers about two of the latest scams targeting them.
One arrives as an SMS text message and the other via e-mail, summoning the reader to court.
In a notice on the Sars web page, the taxman urged unsuspecting taxpayers to ignore the messages and not to fall for the con by clicking on any links sent either to their phones or their e-mail addresses.
The text message scam, also known as smishing, involves a “PayFast” SMS asking the receiver to click on a link to receive a payment from the revenue service.
The other new scam arrives via an e-mail in which the scammers claim to be Sars employees sending a notice with a link to a “court order”. This is known as phishing.
Sars said: “Members of the public are randomly e-mailed with false ‘spoofed’ e-mails made to look as if these e-mails were sent from Sars, but they are in fact fraudulent e-mails aimed at enticing unsuspecting taxpayers to part with personal information such as bank account details.”
Sars gave examples and said they include e-mails that appear to be from [email protected] or [email protected] indicating that taxpayers are eligible to receive tax refunds.
“These e-mails contain links to false forms and fake websites made to look like the real thing, but with the aim of fooling people into entering personal information such as bank account details which the criminals then extract and use fraudulently.”
Sars said they would never request banking details in any communication received via post, e-mail or SMS and would never send any hyperlinks to other websites
Previously, Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter said: “Sars will leave no stone unturned to hunt and find these criminals. This is no idle threat, be warned.”
Speaking of similar attacks on bank clients, chief risk officer at African Bank, Piet Swanepoel, warned consumers to be careful, especially with Black Friday online shopping deals coming up this month.
